Many members of Chicago's P'urhepecha community did not even know they lived a stone’s throw from some of their own historical heritage. Researcher Kate Bellamy organised a meeting to introduce them to books hundreds of years old.

How can you do your bit for sustainability? Students from Leiden University have launched an interactive website with 150 sustainable initiatives in and around The Hague. The website Sustainable The Hague makes it easy to find a sustainable shop, restaurant or community initiative in your local area…

For my Policy in Practice research project, Elise van Dansik engaged with a problem that Leiden ‘Social Domain’ policy officers saw themselves confronted with, which was why migrant organizations of Slaaghwijk (a socio-economically disadvantaged neighborhood in Leiden’s north) do not cooperate with…

In the academic world interest in interdisciplinary research is growing. It can help to solve the big challenges of our times. But starting a research project that covers several disciplines is not always easy. This was one of the conclusions at a Young Academy Leiden (YAL) symposium. What are the c…

Education

Melinda Susanto is appointed as PhD candidate at the Institute for History since April 2020. She introduces herself below.

This year on June 8-12, the Annual Convention of the Austrian and Central European Centres was organised in Leiden. At this convention, directors and (PhD) students from all over the world come together to meet, have presentations by the students on their topics of expertise, and to get the know the…

What do gender identity and digital technology have to do with each other? Together they are the subject of research at Leiden University. Researchers Tessa Verhoef and Eduard Fosch-Villaronga of the faculties of Mathematics and Natural Sciences and Law will investigate the interaction between artificial…

Children and young people feel the government is not listening to them during the coronavirus pandemic and this is a cause for concern in light of international children’s rights. This is the conclusion of a recent report by a research team from Leiden University on how children and youngsters have…

For the past 2 years, Dr Letty ten Harkel has been jointly running an excavation project of a suspected Roman villa site on the Balearic island of Mallorca with colleagues Dr Antoni Puig Palerm and Ritchie Kolvers, MA. The project was recently awarded a LUF Chastelain-Nobach fund to explore the extend…

As part of her Anthropology studies, Leiden student Marleen Kop has made a short documentary about the importance of Leiden-Noord’s ‘soup time’. Her chosen method was participative observation – she spent months helping residents prepare the soup – and the film can now be viewed online.

Medical drugs are expensive to make and can have an adverse effect on the environment. Researchers Stefano Cucurachi and Justin Lian have developed a framework to help the healthcare system assess the economic and environmental sustainability of medical compounds.

Rik van Gijn was appointed professor of Ethnolinguistic Vitality and Diversity in the World from 1 December 2024. He is keen to use the position to set up research on language vitality. ‘People almost never give up their mother tongue entirely voluntarily.’

Morena Skalamera is Assistant Professor of Russian and International Studies. She is a familiar face at Leiden University since August 2018. Morena introduces herself below.

Tessa Verhoef from the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science and Eduard Fosch-Villaronga from eLaw- Center for Law and Digital Technologies have written an article on how affective computing should be inclusive, diverse, and work for everyone.

For already two years, Vincent Niochet has been affiliated with the Leiden Faculty of Archaeology as an external PhD candidate. Now, he has been awarded an NWO PhDs in the Humanities grant, allowing him to continue his research as a paid PhD staff member. ‘The past two years have been quite challenging,…

The Faculty Council is the main consultation and advisory body within the Faculty of Archaeology. Three students and three staff members together represent the Faculty community, advising the board, as well as taking the initiative to put things on the agenda. We speak with council member, and bachelor's…

Education, Research

As part of the TerraNova project, a European research initiative on the study of landscape histories and futures, a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) was developed. Anastasia Nikulina was one of the main chapter coordinators who worked on this course, and she worked on the part about modelling in landscape…

Mariken Teeuwen started at the Institute for History as a professor by special appointment of Script Culture of the Middle Ages on 1 March. ‘I’m looking forward to doing research together with students.’

Just start somewhere: whether it's videos, board games, theatre performances, or festivals. That was one of the key insights Sophie Wintermans gained during the Science Communication Summer School. In her view, the Summer School is a great step for any scientist interested in science communication.

Three students in Elpine de Boer’s class “Practicing Religious Studies” have been working together on a “Leren met de Stad” (“Learning with the City”) project with community centre Morschwijck, located in Leiden. The students were asked by the organization Incluzio to investigate to which extent cultural…

No less than four Leiden research teams have been awarded a grant by NWO. On 27 July NWO honoured 21 applications in the Open Competition ENW-XL. NWO awards the grants to consortia in the exact and natural sciences who are doing unconnected fundamental research that is 'driven by curiosity'.

Publishing an article as early as during your studies. Master's students of Nanne Timmer and Astrid Weyenberg are doing it. In the new course 'Leiden Graduate Journal Culture and Society' they are creating an academic journal.

The Dutch Ministry of Finance commissioned the scientific institute for economic research SEO Amsterdam Economics to investigate to what extent the benefits system and the provision of services have been improved in recent years. The aim of the research project is to determine whether the legal framework,…

Now that it is becoming increasingly easy to digitise texts, it seems almost obvious to do that with everything that has ever been written. University lecturer Verena Meyer thinks that is too simplistic. ‘We need to look more closely at the political and cultural effects of digitisation.’

On 25-26 October 2022, a select group of high-level participants gathered in Leiden to discuss research on Libya’s national reconciliation and access to justice, and to explore implications for policy and law.

On 15 February 2022, Irma Mosquera Valderrama, Professor of Tax Governance, holder of the EU Jean Monnet Chair on EU Tax Governance EUTAXGOV and Principal Investigator of the ERC funded project GLOBTAXGOV, participated in the High-Level Webinar Taxation and Business in Africa.

Michaël Peyrot has been appointed professor of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics with retroactive effect from 1 January. He is looking forward to passing on his love for the subject to a new generation of students.

On July 28, 2022, our dear colleague Daniëlle Hamstra passed away after a short sickbed. Daniëlle had been associated with the Clinical Psychology Section since 2010, initially as a student in the research master's program and subsequently as a lecturer and PhD candidate.

PhD candidate Ludwig Hoffmann will spend two years at Harvard University in the US thanks to a Rubicon grant he won on April 11. Using theoretical models he studies biological tissues, for example during morphogenesis. This is the process that causes tissue or organisms to develop their shape. ‘This…

Rodrigo Ochigame’s project explores how AI redefines scientific evidence, aiming to help scientists critically navigate these transformations with the Veni grant.

Jojanneke van der Toorn is kicking off the new Academia@WorkplacePride year with the LGBTIQ+ Workplace Inclusion Symposium. As a social psychologist, she wants to share knowledge and gather experiences relating to diversity and inclusion at work

The universities of Delft, Leiden and Rotterdam are working together to show their students what artificial intelligence (AI) means for their own field. Three AI minors will start in the 2022 – 2023 academic year and will answer questions such as: ‘How best can you use AI in your research discipline?’…

When do we say violence was used in an incident? The answer may seem obvious at first. But interim results from a study by Jolien van Breen show that Dutch people are labelling events in increasingly broad contexts as violent.

Understanding what our buildings and cities are made of is an important step in making them more sustainable. Industrial ecologist Tomer Fishman (CML) has received an ERC Starting Grant to map the construction materials used in buildings in the Global South. 'Without the data, you can't formulate po…

Waarom is empirisch-juridisch onderzoek van belang voor de rechtspraktijk en het wetenschappelijke onderzoek? Op die vraag kregen masterstudenten van de afstudeerrichtingen civiel recht, ondernemingsrecht en financieel recht antwoord tijdens het congres over empirisch-juridisch onderzoek en het privaatrecht…

On August 30, the online platform Historical Maps of Southeast Asia was launched. The platform provides access to over 1,400 digitised maps of Southeast Asia from the collections of the National Library Board Singapore (307 maps), Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library - Yale University (150 maps),…

Leiden alumnus Emma Govaart (24) wanted to make an impact on society, so she took a job in the non-profit sector after graduating.

It is one of the most famous moments in Dutch TV history: the twenty-three hour long marathon broadcast of Open het Dorp. But what happened to the commune for people with disabilities after that? Monika Baár and Paul van Trigt received a NWO grant of 750,000 euros to map the development of Het Dorp.

You can find here questions and answers about the new mobility policy and what this means for the commuting allowance, the home-working allowance, the contribution to internet use, domestic business travel and the kilometre allowance via the Individual Choices Model.

As of April 2022, Mark de Rooij has been appointed SAILS Professor AI and Data Theory at the Institute of Psychology. This position will enable him to contribute to the goal of the interdisciplinary programme: to build on and expand the current expertise on AI within Leiden University, working from…

Who wouldn’t want their own episode of Het Klokhuis? Researchers Milica Nikolic and Chris Riddell are in the running for the Klokhuis Wetenschapsprijs, which aims to introduce a broad and young audience to scientific research in the Netherlands.

We talk to Justin, who was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder type 1 over 14 years ago. Justin is very candid and talks about his first manic episode at the age of 28, and how he learned to live a stable life. Justin is doing well, and he owes this in particular to his own perseverance. What do you experience…

In October 2021 the Volkskrant published the article 'Rond de bloedgoudmijnen van Burkina Faso heerst de angst voor terreur' (Around the blood-gold mines of Burkina Faso, the fear of terror rules). In this report Carlijne Vos describes how Burkina Faso is rapidly destabilising. The lucrative gold mines…

Soon you will have graduated, and then what? Maybe you've been dreaming of becoming a psychologist for years, but don't want to know where to start. In this episode, clinical psychologist and lecturer Sepideh Saadat tells you how to go about it.

The Dutch Heart Foundation will fund a new nation-wide consortium, AtheroNeth, consisting of preclinical and clinical scientists in the field of atherosclerosis research. AtheroNeth aims to identify novel biomarkers that can be applied to stratify patient groups at risk for acute cardiovascular events…

Can you only have psychedelic experiences by taking magic mushrooms? Not according to Aidan Lyon, philosophical researcher at the Institute of Psychology. In this episode, he explains other ways through which we can reveal our minds in insightful ways.